The present invention relates to coin operated vending machine apparatus for soft drink bottles or cans, and more particularly to back lighted vendor selection panel assemblies therefor, including changeable labels for product identification, package size and price.
The majority of conventional soft drink vending apparatus permits only one package size to be vended in each machine. In addition, the control systems in these vending machines require that each selection have the same vend price. This type of equipment is referred to as single price vending equipment. In this single price environment, it is only necessary to inform the consumer of the product associated with each selection button. Since all packages and prices are identical, a central price/package label is adequate to inform the consumer of this critical information.
New generation vending equipment, however, features flexible vend mechanisms that allow multiple size and design packages to be used in a single machine. In addition, new control system designs permit each selection to have a unique vend price.
These new capabilities require that each selection's flavor, package size and price be communicated to the consumer. One method to achieve this in existing equipment is to add this information to the flavor label. This approach, however, has many operational, cost and inventory deficiencies since labels for a given flavor would have to be printed on all possible package and price combinations. This necessitates either a new product label size or a greatly reduced flavor trademark identification area. These solutions provide inherent limitations which are not acceptable in terms of flavor label inventory issues and consumer communications issues.
Equipment designs of the prior art are known to include label retention means in the vending machine front selection panel. However, this requirement mandates an injection molded part with molded label retention devices. These retention devices and the general layout of components in the door of the vending machine make it extremely difficult to gain access to the product labels for initial set up at the factory or changes in the field. This restriction, moreover, limits the practical thickness of the front selection panel and creates voids in openings in the panel which weaken this area of the machine. These weak points are known to have become specific target areas for vandals in their efforts to gain unauthorized entry into the vending machine.